Prevention in Safer Cities

This article examines the implementation of Safer Cities Program from an ethical perspective. It addresses violence, conflicts and its causes through local authorities in cooperation with the state and the civil society. Ethics is in the centre of this program and its main manifestations are: the involvement of local actors and stakeholder engagement; vulnerable groups inclusion; deteriorated neighbourhoods upgrading and pacification; gender violence diminution; victim assistance; public space diversity and urban services access. To implement it, the ethical approach requires community empowerment as a first principle in all these prevention fields. On the contrary, lack of local prevention policy, the absence of law enforcement, the decrease of social capital and police corruption could create a scenario for urban insecurity.
The article is based in a recent book "Perspectivas Eticas de la Seguridad Ciudadana en Chile y Mexico" (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México and Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, 2015) performed by Mexican, Chilean and United Nations experts in the different field of urban prevention.
The authors of the article are Andrés Suárez and Franz Vanderschueren.